Motorsport Off Topic Thread

Mad how little Lawson has had to do to get that seat, that said I guess it’s not surprising given how small the talent pool is they have to pick from.

Also for some reason I get bad vibes from Lawson, something about him screams spoiled rich kid more than the others, may just be his face, looks like he should play the role of a high school bully in some 80s teen drama lol
 
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Mad how little Lawson has had to do to get that seat, that said it’s not surprising given how small the talent pool is.

Also for some reason I get bad vibes from him, something about him screams spoiled rich kid more than the others, may just be his face, looks like he should play the role of a school bully in some 90s high school teen drama lol

I'd argue the talent pool isn't small at all, its just that Red Bull A: need to be seen to giving one of their juniors a chance again and B: he's performed decently given he's not yet had the chance of a full season / pre-season to get ready, etc.

If anything the talent not on the F1 grid (junior and otherwise) is possibly the strongest its been in years.
 
I'd argue the talent pool isn't small at all, its just that Red Bull A: need to be seen to giving one of their juniors a chance again and B: he's performed decently given he's not yet had the chance of a full season / pre-season to get ready, etc.

If anything the talent not on the F1 grid (junior and otherwise) is possibly the strongest its been in years.
Haven’t they also had Lawson, Yuki and Daniel in the current gen car for track tests, so it’s possible that Lawson did better there.
 
Mad how little Lawson has had to do to get that seat, that said I guess it’s not surprising given how small the talent pool is they have to pick from.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, he's had a lot more messing around on his way to F1 than most drivers. He's served as reserve driver for three seasons, he's raced in a whole load of different things, narrowly lost Superformula as a rookie, only lost out in DTM because of some truly outrageous driving by other drivers in the final weekend, on top of performing decently well in F2 and F3, etc.

You're right that Red Bull have fouled up their talent conveyor though. Lawson should have had a proper couple of seasons in F1 to find his feet, instead they jumped in De Vries, then stuck by Dani Ricc past the point it was clear he wasn't going to perform, and keep clinging on to Yuki despite not having any desire to do anything with him.
 
I'd argue the talent pool isn't small at all, its just that Red Bull A: need to be seen to giving one of their juniors a chance again and B: he's performed decently given he's not yet had the chance of a full season / pre-season to get ready, etc.

If anything the talent not on the F1 grid (junior and otherwise) is possibly the strongest its been in years.

Motorsport has the smallest and least competitive talent pool of any major sport (even a ton of minor sports tbh) on the planet due to the costs involved. This is why you have some bang-average drivers competing at the pinnacle of the sport and why people like Hulkenberg can stick around forever. Any sport that only lets the rich compete is destined to have a substandard talent pool relative to proper sports where anyone can discover if they have talent regardless of wealth.

That said you are correct about it possibly being the strongest it's been in years and relative to 30+ years ago motorsport is now far more competitive than it used to be... but as soon as you compare it to other sports that talent pool is still wafer thin.

Pay drivers would not exist in a sport with a rich talent pool, yet they exist in just about every series on the planet including the pinnacle of the sport.
 
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Also for some reason I get bad vibes from Lawson, something about him screams spoiled rich kid more than the others, may just be his face, looks like he should play the role of a high school bully in some 80s teen drama lol
Speaking as someone who has Kiwi relatives, they do have a tendency to look a little moody :p But he's not helped (or did he?) his vibe by getting snarky with people at the Mexico GP. If he turns out to have similar attitude as Max and can actually race him, it might get interesting...

EDIT: He's not actually from a wealthy background according to a quick Google.
 
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Speaking as someone who has Kiwi relatives, they do have a tendency to look a little moody :p But he's not helped (or did he?) his vibe by getting snarky with people at the Mexico GP. If he turns out to have similar attitude as Max and can actually race him, it might get interesting...

EDIT: He's not actually from a wealthy background according to a quick Google.

Yeah im being harsh on him, my judgment of him having that spoiled vibe is mainly based from that Mexico race. I imagine he will do a better job than Perez did this season but still fully expect him to get comprehensively schooled by Max.
 
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Ah yes, called the Perez remaining at Red Bull in the summer out as a lie, and looks like I was right. His stay there was totally untenable, perhaps they could afford to lose one WCC, but not another one.
 
Ah yes, called the Perez remaining at Red Bull in the summer out as a lie, and looks like I was right. His stay there was totally untenable, perhaps they could afford to lose one WCC, but not another one.
I don't think it really took much thinking that Perez remaining at Red Bull wasn't going to be indefinite but it is why he managed to do so for so long that we know nothing about. Perhaps they could afford to lose this year's WCC for reasons other than has been made publicly known.
 
Untenable from an individual performance point of view yes, but from a business/constructor point of view he was ideal.

Good luck to Lawson (if it's still him by the start of the season).

I hope that when discussing Perez's replacement Russell's name came up, if only for the laugh around the table :D
 
Some long standing careers have had such a non-event ending this year. Poor treatment for the fans IMO, there should be rules about this stuff rather than it being a media circus. It's too much like a business transaction. Lewis switching teams was more of an event.

No surprise to anyone, except his dad, but he's been poorer than the B team for some time. I hoped they'd pull in Bottas but they won't look outside of their pool. Tsunoda really should be given an opportunity, and it should have happened months ago when the WCC was a long shot. Seems odd they ran him post-season but aren't going to promote him. Surely being the sole Japanese driver in a top team brings in opportunities.
 
but from a business/constructor point of view he was ideal.
How? He single handedly lost them the constructor's title :confused:
Was it? Given Lewis's history with the team I don't really think Merc did a particularly great send off. They were more interested in keeping Petronas happy.
I thought Merc handled it perfectly. They did multiple events, site visits, a nice number of videos on socials, specials etc. Some people have said they did too much bearing in mind he isn't actually retiring.
 
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